Michael Powell, ex-banker and studio contract director who churned out 23 films between 1931 and 1936, and Emeric Pressburger, a well-educated Hungarian whose career as a journalist was cut short by the rise of Nazism causing him to flee to Paris and switch to becoming a screenwriter, may have begun their careers in wildly disparate…
Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara [Cohen Media Group] Blu-ray Review
The year is 1864 and Edgardo Mortara is a six-year-old boy who is suddenly taken away from his Jewish family because the Papal authorities declare that they believe he was baptized in secret and thus is actually a Christian and unfit to be raised by Jewish parents. In the process of attempting to win back…
June Zero [Cohen Media Group] Blu-ray Review
For those not aware Adolf Eichmann was a high-ranking member of the Nazi party and the SS that was instrumental in organizing the Holocaust and in particular the concentration camps that Jews were kept in during World War II. In 1960, Eichmann was captured by Israel’s Mossad agency, put on trial and eventually executed in…
Io Capitano [Cohen Media Group] Blu-ray Review
Seyoud and Moussa are two teen cousins living in less than optimal conditions in Senegal, dreaming of a better life. They finally decide to forge ahead with the ultimate goal of traveling to Italy. The road is a tough one though. After forging passports and nearly being caught by the police, they brave many challenges…
Love on the Ground Blu-ray review
Love on the Ground is a French drama from 1984 that stars a pair of theater troupe members who are invited to a theater performance, and their lives are forever changed! Taking place in Paris, Emily (Jane Birkin, Dark Places, Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye) and Charlotte (Geraldine Chaplin, Z.P.G., The Age of Innocence)…
Monsieur Hire Blu-ray review
People that live quiet lives alone and generally keep to themselves might related to Patrice Leconte’s Monsieur Hire. This picture looks at a man who is a loner but finds love through a window. This is the tragic story of Hire (Michel Blanc, Strike It Rich, The Odd Job) a middle-aged man who lives alone…
Going Places (1974 film) Blu-ray review
Bertrand Blier’s Going Places (aka Les Valseuses) is a 1974 French comedy drama that is about two guys and lots of girls. French screen legends Miou-Miou, Gérard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere star in this movie, which is infamous for its look at sexuality, sex acts and loads of nudity! The” plot” has to do with…
Expresso Bongo (Cohen Media Group Blu-ray) review
Down on his luck manager and hustler, Johnny Jackson (Laurence Harvey) is always looking for the next hit. It seems like everyone in Soho knows him. But they can’t wait for him to pay up or leave. His would-be singer and stripper girlfriend Maisie (Sylvia Syms) waits patiently for him to make her a star,…
Blu-ray Review: Dancing with Crime & The Green Cockatoo
Cohen Media packages together two early British film noirs. As counterpoints to their American films, these films offer unique British favored crime stories. Of the two, Dancing with Crime (1947) is the more interesting post-war thriller. There is plenty of sleaze and repressed anger under the surface. The Green Cockatoo is in rough condition considering…
Ash is Purest White (Cohen) Blu-ray Review
During the early 2000s a bit of a gang war starts to brew. One leading member named Bin (Liao Fan) gets attacked and nearly killed before his girlfriend Qiao (Zhao Tao) steps in with a gun. When the police arrive Qiao is thrown into prison for five years for possession of an illegal firearm. When…